One Seventeen
by hijklmnop
Summary: They are two-hundred and sixty-six days, six hours and forty-three minutes into their escape when Zack starts to lose it. Inspired by "Soulmates" by Placebo. Requested by a friend.


They are two-hundred and sixty-six days, six hours and forty-three minutes into their escape when Zack starts to lose it.

It was probably the ten months that they'd been trekking it across Gaia, on the run, some state of disarray or another. Or maybe it was the lack of bathing, because that got pretty smelly after awhile. His hair was sticking at odd angles. Cloud couldn't have liked that either, guy was showing his distress more and more as of late, wasn't he? It could have been the four long fucking years locked in that psychopath's _playpen_ that could have started to weigh on him too. Pins and needles and cold, icy cold, steel surfaces, every which way. Glass fucking prison.

Or maybe it was the canned soup. Zack was getting really sick of canned soup.

He'd gotten really good at seeing in the dark. Necessary, when they couldn't afford to chance a lantern, a fire, a some kind of light source. Safer when nobody could see them. Safer when they could sink into the shadows and fall off the map, just for a few hours. That kind of constant paranoia, checking over shoulders, that came with being on the run, it was tiring. And he could have used the break.

Even if it was with stupid soup. Did he say he was sick of soup? He was really incredibly sick of soup. It was just easy to gank, all convenient and in a can, kept well, traveled well, the tin was resilient. Optimum meal shit.

And so long as Cloud wasn't complaining, Zack wasn't complaining. Zack had no room to complain, right? Him and Cloud, they had a mutual bond going on, a deal of sorts - Zack had asked him all about it, back around day ten. So long as Cloud didn't complain, Zack wouldn't either. Kept everything nice and neat, kept everything jovial. Better. It was trying, but. Cloud was being strong, Zack could too, right?

Only Cloud wasn't very strong, was he? He slumped a lot lately and all. He couldn't even hold his spoon, couldn't even slacken his jaw enough to eat anything. Meal times were a hassle, was all, and that was another point in the side for soup, that it was easier to get Cloud to keep down softer foods, broth or what have you. Tonight had been chicken noodle. He'd spilled a little, down Cloud's front, was there with a towel right now, apologizing profusely to someone he wasn't even sure could hear.

It was different, with Cloud, when there was the initial _action_, the spilling the soup, like this situation defied the laws of physics. Zack had always read that for every action, there was an equal and opposite REACTION. If you punched someone, they were going to get knocked backwards. If you dropped a dish, it was going to break. If someone got something spilled onto them, they were going to yelp, jump, move, something.

But Cloud didn't. Yelp, jump, move, or even flinch. And as Zack patted at the damp spot, mopped up chicken broth and a few mini veggies mixed in, the lines between the carrots and the bits of chicken started blurring, it was weird. One minute they were all separate and there and the next, he couldn't see straight. At least the soup hadn't been hot, without fire to heat it up. He didn't have to check for burns. He-- couldn't check for much right now, just let his hand curl, helplessly, into the towel.

Cloud's head lolled, like it always did, the slow and even rise and fall of his chest the only indication that he was even still ialive./i

Zack just missed it, was all. He missed reactions. He missed getting something, equal and opposite causes to his snide remarks, his smiles and his jokes and his inane singing. He missed eye rolls and smirks and even, when he was lucky, a chuckle or two. He missed getting that kind of thing out of Cloud.

He missed when he could lift his chin, like now, and not know that there wasn't going to be anything looking back at him but some hollow, fucked-up shell, the ghost of the former Cloud Strife.

Zack sucked in a hard breath, tossing the towel aside a bit uselessly and rubbing fervently at his nose. There were hot, fresh tears streaking his cheeks, blurring his vision, he knew they were there. He guessed even the biggest rocks had to crack sometimes, right? Even First Class SOLDIERs couldn't man up all the time.

"Quit being such a crybaby, huh?" he shot out, suddenly, hands still cupping Cloud's chin. "Come on, Cloud, I know it's rough, but you can't crack now. We got a long ways to go. Freedom's on that horizon, I know it, it's just a big, bad hike to get all the way there." Cloud didn't answer, this was stupid; Cloud never answered. Zack swept a thumb across his cheek, regardless, the leather of his gloves sliding across smooth skin and nothing else. Cloud never answered, Cloud never cried. Never complained.

"Sorry I broke our promise, Chocobo," he added, softly, forehead tilted against Cloud's own. "I'll make it up to you." He swiped his forearm across his eyes quick, grinning brightly up at Cloud again, swallowing back that big lump in his throat, all growing and foreboding, threatening to ruin everything. There were just cracks in the metal casing, was all; leaks were going to happen. He was working on it. "Deal?"

He'd liked to have thought Cloud nodded, and Zack clamped enthusiastic hands to the male's cheeks, pulling him in for a spontaneous kiss on the lips before he leaned back again. eyed the stars above them and thought long and hard about this whole freedom thing. "Deal." It was gonna be better. It was gonna work out. He had to believe it or he wasn't gonna make it. And he had to make it, for Cloud.

It's one seventeen in the morning, on September the twelfth, when Zack and Cloud have that stupid first kiss. Cloud never remembers it.

And Zack's dead two weeks later.


End file.
